Analysists end debate on Team Blue’s side
>>Print ViewPublication Date: 06/26/2009
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The Exponent newsroom is divided and in chaos.
The tumultuous state that is the newsroom occurred regarding an important segment of every Purdue student’s academic lifeline – the color of the Purdue webmail. The two teams are Team Blue and Team Purple, and although as a reporter I have to be somewhat impartial, I officially declare myself a member of Team Blue. The color of the Purdue Webmail is blue.
Some say blue, some blueish-purple or indigo, and the color-confused say purple. Indigo, or blueish-purple, indeed falls between blue and violet on the color wheel. But indigo is made by mixing three parts of blue and one part of red. Indigo is incontestably more blue than purple because the three parts of blue overpower the one part of red.
Furthermore, as most of us have learned in any basic art class (heck, most are introduced to the color wheel in kindergarten!), purple is made by mixing red and blue in a variety of ways. Each way requires at least one part blue for it to exist. Every single shade of purple has blue. Thus, it can be well inferred that purple is a derivative of blue.
The newsroom has turned to many for aid and assistance in resolving our upheaval. Some psychology professors and other doctors discussed why the shade of blue might look like purple. But the debate is not about what the color of the webmail page may look or seem like, but what it actually is.
“Purple fails,” proclaimed Steve Tally, who used to work with iTap and now is a strategic marketing consultant at Purdue, after investigating the issue.
Michael Rubesch, executive director of information technology systems and operations and another investigator on Team Blue, found the technical answer to what color the Purdue Webmail site really is.
David Halsema, mailhub systems administrator said the background color of Webmail is a hexadecimal color No. 222244, which, according to PaletteBuilder, is blue. Delusional Team Purple should visit http://palettebuilder.com/hexadecimal/222244/default.aspx to realize the truth.
Moreover, when one logs into the webmail application there is another slightly different color that is used as the background for the icons such as ‘Inbox,’ ‘Compose,’ and ‘Folders,’ etc. Halsema said that this color is hexadecimal color No. 444466, which is predominantly blue, too.
“Although, to my eyes, placing #222244 and #444466 next to each other makes the latter look purple,” Halsema said. “However, this could be because I'm red/green colorblind.”
This debate is about what the color actually is, and clearly, despite the misleading ways of my opponents, it’s blue.